Skira had first approached Matisse with the idea of illustrating a new edition of Mallarmé’s poems in
1930. The sixty-one-year-old Matisse accepted the invitation with enthusiasm, and between 1930 and 1932 produced some sixty-six
preparatory studies for the book, including two sketches of Poe derived from a nineteenth-century engraving of the “Stella”
daguerreotype (fig. 60) The completed likeness (fig. 61) served as a pendant
portrait to Matisse’s well-known etching of Charles Baudelaire, used to illustrate Mallarmé’s poem “Le Tombeau
de Baudelaire”

(fig. 60) Engraving by Frderick Warne & Co.

[Illustration on page 128]

Matisse felt that his greatest challenge in illustrating the Poésies was to create a harmonious balance
between the pages of printed text and the facing illustrations. He later remarked, “As for my first [illustrated] book — the
poems of Mallarmé . . . The right-hand pages carrying the full-page illustrations were placed opposite left-hand pages
which carry the text in 20-point Garamond italic. The problem was then to balance the two pages — one white, with the etching, and
one comparatively black, with the printing.”(136) To execute the finished plates,
Matisse chose a sapphire point for his etching needle — notable for producing quick, incisive lines on the copper etching plate.
As Matisse ­[page 130:] recalled, “Some etchings [were] done in an even,
very thin line, without shading, so that the printed page is almost as white as it was before the etching was printed.”(137)

Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé was printed in Paris in October 1932, in an edition limited to a total of 145
copies. Of these, 30 copies were printed on imperial Japanese vellum, and 95 on hand-made d’Arches vellum. An additional 20 were
produced hors commerce.(138) American distribution of the book was handled by the
Marie Harriman Gallery in New York but, due to the Great Depression, copies sold slowly.(139)

Nevertheless, the curator of the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred H. Barr, hailed the Poésies as “one
of the most beautiful illustrated books ever printed.”(140) Matisse himself was
pleased with the finished volume, commenting, “After concluding these illustrations . . . I would like to simply state:
This is the work I have done after having read Mallarmé with pleasure.”(141) In 1932 the book’s maquette — comprising Matisse’s original sketches, working proofs, and canceled
etching plates — was acquired by Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore. The maquette, which also includes two preliminary studies of
Poe, is now part of the Cone Collection at the Baltimore Museum of Art.